Topic 3i: Ice Sheet Decline
In this video, David Vaughan gives a personal testimony describing the changes he has experienced during his career observing the Antarctic.
Reflecting on the 30 years of satellite data that are available to scientists, David describes how we now know that patterns in ice are due to climate trends rather than weather variation. He gives some examples of the thinning of the Antarctic Ice Sheet that he has observed since 1985.
Featured Educator:
- Professor David Vaughan
(This video was filmed remotely during COVID-19 lockdown conditions)
Course topics
The core videos of this course are labelled as topic videos.
We have also provided a range of optional further reading, links, and additional resources to help consolidate your learning. Here is a summary of what is available:
Topic links and resources
In each topic, once you have watched the video and read the accompanying text, you will find the following information:
- Optional Further Reading: These are external links to further reading.
- Featured Images and Animations: Below the text on each video page, you’ll find the featured images and featured animations.
- Interactives: On the 'Interactives' tab on relevent topic pages, you will find a satellite tracking application showing the current location of the satellites, a data viewer from the ESA WEkEO platform, as well as a data viewer, specially created for this course, allowing you to explore a selection of data relevant to the themes and topics in this course. (Please note that due to maintenance, the data viewer is currently unavailable).
Quizzes and comments
- Quizzes: At the end of each week there will be a quizz consisting of around five questions. These will help you consolidate your understanding of new topics, but are not scored. The feedback given with each answer also will also provide you with important information.
Weekly interactive exercises
At the end of each week, we have included a guided exercise, using interactive apps available on other websites, to help you become more familiar with looking at and working with EO datasets. You will be guided through the process of searching for, comparing and drawing conclusions from data relevant to some of the topics covered in that week.
- ESA CCI - Greenland Ice Sheet
- Ubiquitous acceleration in Greenland Ice Sheet calving from 1985 to 2022 - Nature
- Ice Sheet Melt On Track With 'Worst-Case Scenario' - ESA
- Diary Of A Climate Scientist: "I See A Mess Of Broken Icebergs In The Ocean" - The Guardian
- Vital Signs: Ice Sheets - NASA
- Huge Cavity in Antarctic Glacier Signals Rapid Decay - NASA
- The Ice We've Lost To Climate Change This Past Decade - Vox
- Clearest Evidence Yet Of Polar Ice Losses - ESA
- Large and Irreversible Future Decline of The Greenland Ice Sheet - University of Reading
- Fossil Bluff Field Station - BAS
- Satellites Saw Rapid Ice Loss in Greenland - BBC
- Antarctica Loses Three Trillion Tonnes Of Ice In 25 Years - BBC
- Greenland's Glaciers Could Lose More Ice Than Previously Thought, Raising Concerns For Sea Level Rise - CNN
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